Flexing Your Muscles
by Uncle Charlie
Summary: When Illya's PT is at the end of his ropes, it's time to call in the Big Dogs. A Working Stiff story


I'm not exactly everyone's favorite person around headquarters, especially with the agents. While the doctors and the nurses have the task of putting them back together like living jigsaw puzzles, I'm the one who must make them field ready… or not. Perhaps that is the hardest part of the job. Having to watch a man, or later a woman, who has gone in and done the job, only to be cut down by enemy fire, be told they were benched. Or after they've been caught and tortured, beaten, broken, raped or worse, then telling he or she their sacrifice was for nothing; they are being pulled to watch the world from the sideline. For field agents, it's often the Kiss of Death and they eating a bullet. Others struggle but never make the adjustment.

I'm a physical therapist and let me tell you, it's hard when it's just a regular agent. When it's a senior agent, it's even harder, but when it one of UNCLE's Golden Boys, it's almost impossible.

Like most bad news, the word of a failed mission spreads like wildfire in HQ. If there are fatalities or severe injuries, it travels even faster. Medical pulls its surgeons in to stand by; the blood bank starts checking its stock, setting up for more donors if necessary. Files are pulled, arrangements are made and we hunker down to wait. Sometimes, it's not as bad as was expected. Other times, like now it's much worse.

I did my best to stay out of the way, watching as the gurney with its crowd of doctors and nurses made its way past. Nellie was doing her best to act professional, but I could see the tears sliding down her cheeks and the mangle remains of what had once been a hip and a leg.

That's when I saw his partner – his eyes so weary it looks like they had been smudged with ash, his face so gaunt he looked more like a refugee from a Third World country than the head of Enforcement. I didn't know the details of the mission, didn't really want to, considering the outcome. I just step aside and wait. It's what I do.

And somehow Kuryakin defied the odds and he survived surgery and then a dozen return trips for ensuing post op infections and more repairs. They talked about amputation more than a couple of times, even had him on the table and prepped, but in the end, he held on to the leg, although it was more out of kindness than anything else. He was never going to use it again, that was a certainty in my book. I'd been in this line of work for a long time and I'd never seen anyone come back from something this bad.

I walked into the meeting just before it was scheduled to start. I don't like being at these reviews for any longer than is absolutely necessary. I'd been working with Kuryakin for over a month and I didn't want to have to say the words we all knew were inevitable. He'd been trying hard, harder than he should have been permitted to, but I let him set his own pace, knowing that it was futile to try and hold a Section Two back. These guys are totally driven, totally committed and totally insane if you ask me. No one ever does; they just expect me to make it right again when something goes wrong.

We'd worked on strengthening his muscles and physically above the waist, he was in great shape. Below, not so much. The leg wouldn't support him for more than a few seconds and you could see the effort and price just those few seconds ere costing him. Worse, you could already see the acceptance in his eyes. He'd admitted defeat to himself and that was practically an insurmountable obstacle. If he'd given up, it truly was game over for him.

Worse, I entered and immediately locked eyes with Solo. I really didn't want to have to say what needed to be said with him there. Just once I wished I could override the rules and regs and bar him from the review. But, as Section head, it was his right and his obligation to be here, probably more so than usual, since it was his partner we were reviewing.

"Ah, Dr. Saunders, finally. Now we can begin." Waverly didn't like to beat around the bush. "What are your findings?"

I opened my files, knowing what was already written there. "Um… I've been working with Agent Kuryakin for five weeks and while there has been some improvement, at this time I don't believe there is much hope." I paused and took a deep breath. "I'm officially recommending retirement. In my opinion, he will not advance to a level at which we can field certify him. I will continue to work with him, but "

"You don't know that." I expected that from Solo. He argues when it's just some junior agent he doesn't even know the name of. Solo is the eternal optimist.

"Now you're gonna tell Saunders his job?" That was Ricky Langstrom, head of Section Three. "Give the man some credit, Napoleon. He knows his job."

"But he doesn't know Illya." Solo's voice was even and I found myself wondering if I'd ever had that much faith in something. Kuryakin struggled just to sit upright and yet Solo believed in him. He spent every free minute he had with his partner.

"What would you suggest, Mr. Solo?" Waverly always cut Solo more slack than the rest of us, probably because he'd already fingered Solo as his replacement as Section One head.

"Let me work with him." Those hazel eyes were so hopeful, so desperate. He'd been on half a dozen missions since his partner was brought in, but none of them had been the rousing success the two usually enjoyed. I had a sneaking suspicion, too, that if we took Kuryakin out of the field, Solo would follow and Waverly didn't want that.

"And what would be your feelings about that, Dr. Saunders?" Waverly turned to me.

I had to think about my patient. I had no doubt that Kuryakin would push himself harder with his partner than me, but was that in his best interest? Then and again, he had very little to lose except a lifetime of being confined to a wheelchair. I decided that my ego could handle it.

"At this point, I'm willing to try anything."

I should have thought about my choice a bit more. I was ready for Solo's good humor, his patience, his resourcefulness; what I wasn't prepared for was his determination, his stubbornness, and his anger. I thought I worked the Russian hard, but it was nothing compared to what Solo did to him over the next few days. Even when it was apparent to me that Kuryakin as at the breaking point, Solo pushed and he pushed hard, deaf to Kuryakin's protests and voicing of pain. He got Kuryakin to his feet a number of times, each one a fraction longer, but that was still a long way from being functional.

I could see the weariness in Kuryakin's eyes; he was so tired and yet he kept trying, mostly because it was his partner asking that much more from him. Somehow, he kept reaching down into that reserve and finding just a bit more strength. But he was at the end, I could tell.

"You're a coward, Kuryakin!" Napoleon stood at the other end of the parallel bars, but he might as well have been across the room or across the country for all his partner cared. Kuryakin sat in his wheelchair, the pain and effort of just sitting upright etched into his face.

"Excuse me?" Kuryakin leaned slightly in his wheelchair to take some of the pressure off his hip and leg.

"I said you're a coward." Solo crossed his arms and shook his head sadly. "I never thought I'd see this day. You're weak and you're scared and you're taking the easy way out."

And you could see Kuryakin getting more and more angry. Part of it was at Solo's arrogance, dancing around him with an ease that was just this side of merciless taunting. Another part was actual fear. You could see it in his eyes, the fear of even more pain and of admitting even more limitations, and a very real fear of making the whole thing worse. He'd tolerated a dozen operations in less than six months, and had pretty much resigned himself to a life in a wheelchair. Too bad no one told his partner that.

"I know what you're trying to do, Solo, and it's not going to work," Kuryakin snapped, his hands clenching and unclenching. If Solo got close enough, I had no doubt Kuryakin would send a right cross in his direction.

"Sure you do, _Monsieur Faible. Je ne peux pas croire que vous soyez une telle personne sans ténacité de wristed molle_ ." Kuryakin's head snapped at Solo's words - 'I can't believe that you are such a limp wristed quitter'. Now my French isn't perfect, so I might not be translating everything correcting, but if I was standing, that was hitting below the belt even for Solo. But I gave him credit. Forcing Kuryakin to think in another language distracted him.

"_Fermer, Napoléon_ !" 'Shut up, Napoleon.' I was about to put a stop to it when I realized Kuryakin had made it to his feet, unassisted, glaring his expression furious, his attention totally focused on his partner. I'd never seen him this angry. Hell, I'd never seen anyone that angry – it was literally rolling off him in waves. He'd settled his weight on the parallel bars and I found myself holding my breath. And all the while, Solo waltzed just a few feet from him, the ease of his own movements taunting and goading Kuryakin.

"_Me faire ! Oh, mais ne vous pouvez pas, le petit lâche cassé pauvre. C'est plus facile à cacher, n'est-ce pas ? C'est plus facile à ramper loin dans un coin et un gémissement comme quelque animal de blessur?"_ "Make me! Oh, but you can't, poor little broken coward. It's easier to hide, isn't it? It's easier to crawl away into a corner and whimper like some hurt animal." My mouth dropped as Kuryakin's feet shuffled forward, just the fraction of an inch, but a mile further than he'd walked in nearly half a year.

"_Vous le fils d'une chienne, j'ai pensé vous étiez mon ami!"_ "You son of a bitch, I thought you were my friend!" Kuryakin's attention was fully on Solo now, his eyes snapping and glaring, his jaw set in a determined clench. I wouldn't have been surprised to hear his teeth grinding from his efforts, but he surged forward, more from sheer will than anything else.

"Look where you are, Illya." The switch from French back to English shook Kuryakin from his rage and he suddenly became aware that he was standing, not by his wheelchair, but halfway down the bars. He looked frantically from one end to the other as his body struggled to perform tasks that hadn't been demanded of it in a long time. "One way or the other, Illya. To me and freedom or back to a life in that chair. It's your choice."

I stood there and watched Kuryakin go through the agony of dragging his body, bending it to his will until he'd reached Solo and his partner's arms around him and he was half-choking on tortured sobs as his partner held him and cooed soft encouragement into his ear.

Within the next month, Kuryakin was walking unaided, another three weeks found him running and before the year was out, he was back in the field like nothing had ever happened. People gave me great credit for my achievement. My boss wrote me up for a very substantial raise, but I knew I didn't deserve it. I hadn't done anything but watch two incredible men and the bond between them. I was envious, I was awed, but mostly I was sad – sad to think of so many people sidelined because they didn't have someone who believed in them the way Solo and Kuryakin believed in each other. From where I'm standing, you don't see that come along too often, maybe just once in a lifetime, if you're lucky. If you're very, very lucky.


End file.
